


Paint Like Bruises

by pyrchance



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Ponyboy-centric, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrchance/pseuds/pyrchance
Summary: Ponyboy keeps finding smudges of color on his skin. The girls in his class whisper about soul marks.
Relationships: Johnny Cade/Dallas Winston, Ponyboy Curtis/Dallas Winston
Comments: 19
Kudos: 101





	Paint Like Bruises

He mistakes the first mark for a bruise when he’s just ten.

He and Sodapop and Darry have been wrestling out in the park with some of the other neighborhood boys. Ponyboy, always the youngest, has to beg Soda to convince Darry to take him along, so he is being real careful not to act like a dumb kid around their friends.

All the other boys are bigger than Pony. Middle schoolers and then some. He doesn’t want stupid Steve to call him a crybaby again though, so he doesn’t sit back when Darry tells him to. Instead, he jumps in, throwing his knuckles against some towheaded punk Tim Shepard had brought along.

The kid is real mean, sneering and sarcastic and not shy about delivering a wallop on a someone smaller than him like Ponyboy. Pony still remembers being oddly thankful for that, even if Darry just about loses his head when he sees Ponyboy in the fray, dragging him home and tattling to their mother.

That night before bed, Pony catches sight of that first mark poking out the bottom of his t-shirt sleeve. It is so blue it’s nearly purple, a bumpy little mark of four knuckles on his skin. Pony stares at it admiringly, thinking it makes him look tough.

He doesn’t realize it then, but this is the first time Dallas Winston ever leaves his soul on Ponyboy’s skin.

For a long while, Pony is clean.

It’s not like he spends any more time around hoods like Dally than he has too. Hell, even the Shepard boys own better manners than Dally.

But then Tim and Dally have a falling out—if they were even that close to begin with, Pony is never sure—and instead the new kid from New York begins spending more and more time at the Curtis house. Mom and Dad act shy around him, like they’re not quite sure what to make of this new narrow-eyed punk, but the front door remains open. Like a bad stray, Dally wanders in and out of Pony’s home at his leisure.

Even then, it takes a long time for Pony to connect the little smudges of color he finds on his skin to the intruder in his home. They’re just little things, after all. He finds slash of green on his ankle as he’s tying his shoe, and vaguely remembers tripping over Dally’s sleeping legs. Streaks of orange decorate his stomach after Dally takes a swipe at him and he wonders if the other had been painting. He walks too slow on the way to school and comes home with a red handprint under his jacket, thinking Dally must have really been annoyed to push him so hard.

It’s not until middle school that he learns the name of it—soul marks. It’s like a switch being flipped. Once he hears that word it’s like it’s everywhere. Girl sigh over soul marks up and down the hallway, checking their wrists for taboo colors or painting them on for pretend during art. The books in his English classes start filling up with plots of skin marked with destiny, even though, Pony learns, the likelihood of meeting your true soul mate is slim to none. They even get called in for a special class in health that has Ponyboy staring at his feet, ears burning, for the rest of the day.

As his own skin starts looking like a bad art show, Ponyboy isn’t so stupid not to put two and two together and start counting to four.

When Dally reaches out one day, totally unexpected, and ruffles Pony’s hair, he knows enough to sprint home and shove a cap on his head, just as the first brilliant marks of yellow appear in his hair. It’s horrible and scary. He wears that cap all week and Two-Bit gives him hell for looking like some baseball-brained soc, but it’s worth it. No one notices the streaks of yellow in his hair and that’s enough for him. By the time the marks have faded, Ponyboy has resolved not to think about it. Any of it.

So when he sees Dallas Winston walking to school the next day, Ponyboy ditches his brothers, starts running, and lones it. He’s shamed and he doesn’t know why or who to tell or what to do. He just knows that he’s different and it scares him.

He takes to wearing his jacket all the time, even gloves when he can manage it. He hangs back from the gang, trailing behind them, heeding Darry’s advice and sitting out when they wrestle, going to the drive-in or the library or the park by himself and learning to be on his own. It’s lonely, but it’s a choice. Being alone gives him some control.

He reaches out, just once.

He wonders, after all, with Dally going around in a leather jacket all the time, if maybe he’s not the only one. He overhears some soccy girl in his class whispering about how romantic it would be to paint another person and wear their marks in return. He learns that, whatever this is, it’s meant to be a two-way street.

So Ponyboy lets himself get close one day. He joins the rest of the gang as they gallivant through the neighborhood, hooting at strangers and messing around. He walks close enough to Dally he’s sure his entire left side will be painted red by the time they make it home.

And he reaches out. Let’s his fingers brush the back of Dally’s hand, the only visible bit of skin in reach, and he waits.

And waits.

Nothing happens.

He sticks around all night with the boys and not for a single second does Dally’s hand gain a drop of color. Ponyboy curls his fingers (dyed blue with Dally’s skin) into a fist and drops back from the group, alone and empty.

It’s just him, then, he thinks.

So, from then on, Ponyboy lones it.

A few months pass.

Ponyboy is properly thirteen and hanging around with Johnny Cade. Johnny doesn’t liked to be touched and this works just fine for Ponyboy, who keeps at an arms length from the boys just in case, no matter that Sodapop sometimes looks at him funny, like he’s wondering what Ponyboy is doing so far away.

They’re taking turns picking up stones from the asphalt and pelting them at a pop can they’ve propped up down the way. Neither of them are too athletic when it comes to throwing things, but it’s too hot for them to be inside and they’ve got an icy coke riding on whoever can knock the can over first.

Ponyboy is watching Johnny wind up for his next hit when he notices a line of green on Johnny’s wrist. He sits up abruptly. Johnny’s usual jeans jacket is tied around his waist and his arms are bare and Pony catches sight of that little smudge of green and quits breathing.

Johnny throws his pebble, misses, cusses, and turns around to catch Ponyboy staring. For a second Johnny just looks at him, puzzled, before he looks down and sees that green mark on his wrist.

They both sort of freeze. Johnny’s face gets real tense, like he does whenever he hears his mom calling at him to come home.

“Who is it?” Ponyboy asks, hushed. His face is hot. He knows what a girly question that is, but he can’t help it. He’s never seen Johnny so much as glance at a girl before, even though he’s two years older.

“I gotta get home,” says Johnny. He unties his jacket and pulls it on hurriedly, avoiding Ponyboy’s eyes.

Ponyboy lurches to his feet. “What?”

“Sorry, Pony.” Johnny’s backing away, not looking at him. “I’ll see you later, alright?”

He turns then, and scurries away. Ponyboy watches him go with wide-eyes and an outstretched arm. Part of him is hurt, sort of mad that Johnny doesn’t trust him enough to share. The larger part of him is just hungry with questions.

Soul marks are rare. Even Sodapop, who is loved by everybody, has never come around with painted skin. Hell, apart from the people on TV and in his books, Ponyboy has never seen someone like him before. He had almost figured he was only one in their neighborhood dealing with this.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Johnny says, the next time Ponyboy manages to catch him alone. “Don’t ask me about it.”

It’s the first time in weeks Johnny hasn’t fled at the sight of him. He couldn’t help himself from asking about it, but ever time he tries the meeting goes sour and Johnny runs. Ponyboy is desperately curious, but the look Johnny’s giving him now is hurt and scared. It’s familiar. Pony hates to be the one to put it on his face.

“Alright,” Ponyboy agrees slowly and can’t regret it when the tension drains from Johnny’s shoulders. He regrets it, but even now he knows he’s not brave enough to tell Johnny the truth.

He learns to keep quiet and doesn’t bug Johnny with questions. This doesn’t stop him from watching though. After a few days, things slowly get back to normal. Ponyboy keeps his eyes peeled on Johnny as they tromp around town, watching to see if any waitress or cashiers or bus girls leave their mark. None of them do.

Ponyboy bites his tongue and keeps his eyes open.

And then his parents die.

Ponyboy doesn’t remember much, but what he does he can play back in his head like a movie.

He doesn’t remember what his mom was wearing when she stepped out the door with his dad, but remembers exactly the look on Darry’s face when the phone rings.

He doesn’t remember the sermon at the funeral or what the priest sounded like, but he remembers Darry’s arm across his shoulder and Sodapop hugging his side and shaking like he was cold even though it was a hot, sunny day. The weight of Darry’s arm was unfamiliar, but Soda smelled the same. He remembers it being a long time since he dared hug his brothers.

He doesn’t remember exactly when Soda starts sleeping in his bed, but he does remember the night terrors. He remembers waking up one night, too hot, with itchy skin where Soda had tossed an arm over his chest. He remembers worming his way out from the covers and stumbling to the kitchen, pausing when he sees the living room isn’t empty but full of greasers sprawled out and sleeping.

There is Two-Bit, hogging the couch, mouth open and snoring into the cushions. There is Steve, hanging off the reclining chair, feet up. There, on the floor are Dally and Johnny. Johnny sleeps in a ball, arms tucked in, but Dally sprawls out like he tripped and just decided to stay there.

Ponyboy looks at Dally, because he always looks at Dally, especially when he knows the other can’t notice. He looks and he finally sees it.

One of Dally’s hands rests against the back of Johnny’s neck. The back of Dally’s fingers are stained purple. As in a mirror, purple smears the back of Johnny’s neck.

Ponyboy doesn’t remember walking back to his bedroom. He doesn’t remember crawling into bed or the way Sodapop had shaken awake by his crying. He doesn’t remember Darry coming in and joining them, petting Pony’s hair like he was a kid and whispering in his ear.

He doesn’t remember that, but he does remember this—his parents are dead and his heart is broken.

His parents are dead and his soul mate doesn’t belong to him.

He holds onto this thought the next morning when he wakes and does not stare at Dally’s fingers, purple like bruises, curling around his coffee cup.

He holds onto this thought as Johnny pulls him into a hug and whispers in his ear that he’s here to talk, if Pony needs it.

He holds onto this thought as Darry’s voice takes on a new, firm, chiding tone and Soda runs so wild Pony worries he might break himself.

He holds onto this thought like he’s crushing his fingers around the pieces of a broken bottle, squeezing and squeezing until the slice of it drowns out all the other pains he’s feeling. He holds onto this thought until it smothers his mind and he is left empty and ruined and with a sense that time is slipping and he can’t remember or bother to do a thing about it.

Sodapop keeps sleeping in his bed.

Darry puts a hand on Pony’s shoulder and ruffles his hair.

Two-Bit and Steve pull him into arm wrestling matches and teach him how to tumble.

Ponyboy lets them, finally acknowledging the truth that the only person that could color him doesn’t want to. He spends more time with the gang, even though it hurts him and even though he’s terrified one day they look and _see_.

But because one pain is easier than another, he lets himself get close and he watches. He sees the way Dally’s hands go soft and gentle when he’s around Johnny. He sees the way Johnny trails after Dally like a puppy that’s been kicked, afraid Dally will turn around and notice him there and start yelling. But Dally never yells as Johnny. That’s the thing. He’ll wallop Steve or Two-Bit for acting funny, and even snap at Soda when he’s in a mood, but not once does he raise his voice at Johnny.

They don’t touch often, but Ponyboy catches it when they do. A swipe through Johnny’s hair, an arm around his shoulders, a hand on his wrist to pull him to follow.

Dally still comes and goes like a stray and Johnny is the flightiest of the bunch. No one in the gang but Pony ever seems to notice when they both disappear for a few days or turn up wearing gloves in spring or pulling up their jacket collars.

Ponyboy doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand how someone as sweet and nice as Johnny could look at Dallas Winston the way he does. He sees Dally and he sees a thug and a bully and someone likely to spend their days in jail for something awful. Dally is still that mean and sarcastic kid that beat on him when he was young and asking for it. Dally doesn’t care about anyone or anything.

Except, apparently, Johnny.

It makes something sour and cruel burn in Ponyboy’s gut. What does Johnny have that he doesn’t? What makes Dally look soft at Johnny like that, while sneering at while Ponyboy like an afterthought?

He used to think he didn’t leave any marks on Dally because Dally was incapable of love. But now he knows that’s not true.

It’s Ponyboy who can’t seem to love enough to paint Dally’s skin the way Johnny does.

Dally isn’t the broken one. Ponyboy is.

So he lets himself get close and he watches. His fourteenth birthday passes in a quiet affair.

**Author's Note:**

> Anticipate more parts to this, dealing with Ponyboy during the events of the novel and beyond. 
> 
> As always, drop me a comment below if you liked it or come bother me at @pyrchance on tumblr.


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